In my small-ish London garden (not walled), I now have a large-ish greenhouse and I shall be spending many hours in there propagating and growing all manner of lettuces and tomatoes.

Inspired by the community veg growing project I helped start up in 2009, I created the words and photos for my first book, ‘Veg Street’ in 2013 for Short Books. It’s a month-by-month guide to growing fruit and veg in urban front gardens and small spaces and it also gives tips and advice on how to start your own street growing project – knitting your community together as you go through veg growing and eating cakes.

My second book, ‘Grow all you can eat in 3 square feet’, was published by Dorling Kindersley in February 2015, and is packed full of ideas on how to grow veg in small spaces.

I write the ‘Urban Gardener’ column for ‘Grow Your Own’ magazine and I’m very happy to undertake new gardening projects as well as writing and photography commissions.

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53 Responses

Stumbled across your fab blog today and as an ex-Londoner I know all too well how scarce space can be to grow vegetables. I think growing them in front gardens is a fantastic idea, good luck with your project!

Hi, my friend Rozelle who lives in London and who is a keen gardner sent me your link-blog and I love it! I don’t live in London myself but the tips and information in your blog can work where I live; Lugano Switzerland too. Besides, I just love it when people do inspiring things. Keep up the good work.
Best regards,
iromi

Hi Naomi
Very impressed with your blog and your extensive knowledge
and enthusiasm, whens the book coming out?
Great Dixter sounds great(!), may well give it a visit later in the year and will definitely tell my mum, if she doesn’t already know of it.
Martin

Dear Naomi,
a great website! I live 20 min. from Great Dixter. I also hope u still have the photos you once took at Hyperion Company back in 1991. I’d love to use them in a documentary about Oleg Prokofiev!

Hello Naomi, just found your blog via your comment left for Karen at The Garden Smallholder. Your community project sounds great; I’m interested to see how that goes in 2011. I’m doing something similar over the border in Camden (Tufnell Park) but the kids are more interested than adults. Might have to glean a few tips from you! Great blog, by the way, will be reading regularly. Caro x

Hi Lorna, I’d say the most difficult thing is how to get funding for your project and the most important thing is enthusiasm (and determination!). In the first year we were helped by being part of a joint project, but this year we only received the go-ahead for funding in late April. The rest is talking to neighbours, sourcing good growbags and seeds and lots of time spent on organising. Any more specific questions, just ask. V.best Naomi

Managed a Hackney street gardening project for our local gardeners’ group as part of Chelsea Fringe – mainly under-planting street trees – so had to solve lots of the same issues but without any funding. Investigating local council and other funding for more difficult sites as part of the ongoing work, so would love to hear more about sources etc.

Hi Lorna !
Thanks for the lovely photos of beutifyl flower on yor website.
The reason I visit your site is my magasin (“Allt om Trädgård” in swedish)
in english, Al abauot Gardening. There was a chronicle writen by Viveka
Ljungström and she were to London to wisit Chelsea Flower Show. She told
abauot how she met you and your own work with gardens.
Its easy to know anyone when you have commen intrests like flowers
wherever you mignt live.
Have a nice summer, whishes from northern Sweden, Umeå

Hi Scott, Have a look at Vertical Veg for great ideas of how to grow veg without a garden, or possibly see if one of your neighbours has some spare front garden you could beautify with plants? Working on a neighbours’ corner front garden this year (which is a fair old size) mixing ornamentals and edibles. Chatting to lots of neighbours as garden is developing-Should be a lively and colourful spot, full of fruit, veg and flowers come summer and I know the neighbours will love it too. Thanks for dropping by and good luck with finding a spot to garden in 2012. Naomi p.s. Also Pimp your Pavement may inspire too!

Hi Diana, Yes, I know Mark at Vertical Veg and have been on one of his hugely informative talks. You’re right. It’s a great website. You could try Capital Growth for funding as we did in our first year, but subsequent grants have come from Islington’s Community Chest. Not sure what grants Hackney have, but always worth giving them a call as your project sounds like a great way to green up your local area. Good luck! Naomi

Hi Sean, I think Paul does sometimes mulch, but uses grass clippings and straw rather than compost or manure. If you go to his website/book wwwpaulisinthegarden.com there’ll be lots more information about his views on soil there. When I email him next, will ask him about his views on mulching. V.best Naomi

Hi there! I enjoy your blog and learning about what is going on in London very much! I am awarding you the Versatile Blogger Award! Check out my site to learn the details. I don’t know if you are familiar with this award (it’s been making the rounds recently) but I like your blog very much and wanted to be sure to nominate you. Take care and happy Spring!

Hi Sally, Where do you live? The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) offer courses starting at Level One and upwards. It was called the RHS General Certificate some years ago when I took it as a keen amateur, and I loved it. These courses should run all over the country. Do you have specific areas you want to study as there are many colleges and gardens that offer all sorts of courses? Have a look at my post on courses too in case there might be something there that interests you. Hope this helps. Naomi

Hackney doesn’t really do much in the way of grants nowadays, so we’ve run the entire project to date on the basis of donations – entirely from people’s gardens (with a single exception from the local garden centre, which gave flowering annual bedding plants for one flagship site).
That works surprisingly well. A sort of horticultural communism developed locally, with everyone swapping not only plants, help and information but also spare topsoil and worm tea etc to get all the street tree sites under-planted.
The only sites which really need funding are the particularly difficult ones with restrictive situations and bad orientation, like the very narrow strip at the foot of a long, tall, north-facing wall which needs to be wired and planted with specifically chosen plants, appropriate to the circumstances. For that, we’re necessarily looking for small grant funding as it’s too much to expect nearby residents to fund it as well as doing all the work.

I found this blog when I googled ‘lettuces for shade’ and read your piece on ‘Cos Freckles’. That’s now on my list! We have a shady raised bed in our tiny community garden at London Road Station Brighton (http://londonrdstationpartnership.wordpress.com).

Our kales were wiped out by caterpillars last summer and even our chard is looking miserable after a very dry half a year followed by a very wet half a year. So nice to find a leaf variety I didn’t know that we can start afresh with in our shady bed.

I loved reading all the posts and comments about community veg gardening. We started out very small, trying to cultivate a tiny plot of waste land at an urban station. Our neighbours and passers-by have been wonderful, motivating us gardeners by dropping in to chat, donating things, turning up to events, bringing compost, making our little plot into a real community garden.

We’ve been lucky to be supported by Harvest, the Brighton and Hove Food Partnership (www.harvest-bh.org.uk), who provide advice, support networking and organise day workshops and courses. Can’t praise them enough.

Veg Street – Grow Your Own Community
A marvellous book which I read from cover to cover yesterday. Like many of the ideas in it, it is ‘simple but brilliant’, written by a person with a whole lot of energy. So well done and congratulations Naomi for your hard work and for sharing your inspiring ideas. Must get back to the greenhouse where I am painting a new picture!
James

Hi Linda, Great to hear from you and your blog looks fantastic! How’s life in Portland? Looks like you have a lovely large sized garden (jealous of course!) and mild weather (apart from the hail) too. Spring is taking its time this year and it’s bloomin’ snowing in London this weekend. Frustrating to say the least, but also a good excuse to catch up on reading my latest gardening book arrivals.Looking forward to reading your posts as your gardens develop. V.best Naomi x
p.s. Love your wheelbarrow!

It’s great to see the gardening blogs. I’ve always been terrible in the garden and not through lack of trying…

I’m trying to learn so my partner bought me the Veg Street book and I ended up here. I have to say that the community aspect is very appealing. Even more so when you live in the middle of a busy London street!

Hi Naomi, I really love your book. As well as offering personal inspiration, I’m also drawing on ideas when putting together funding proposals for a communal green space for a ‘friends of’ group I’m involved with. It’s really exciting to think we might be able to encourage more edible plant life in spaces that are owned by the council. Cheers, Sarah
PS Not quite sure why it posted the comment above when I was trying to post this one!

Hi Naomi –
I found you blog which was recommended on another blog I follow. You provide great information and inspiration. I have forwarded your blog to my many gardening friends here in the States and Australia. We are all students and volunteers at Great Dixter.
Thank you kindly for your blogging!

I love your blog, and have been following your neighbourhood gardening project. I garden locally and work on the Urban Wild Places project at Octopus Communities, an Islington charity. We are currently crowdfunding to buy a milk float, which we want to convert to a ‘Gro-Mobile’, a potting shed and nature classroom on wheels. Would you be able to help us spread the word? Details about our work to empower local communities to grow and the campaign can be found on our Spacehive page:

I have just stumbled across your book ‘grow all you can eat in three square feet’ as it appeared in a book box club that is left at work and it is totally amazing. I have started growing for the first time this year and have built small raised beds on the patio that seem to be working. I’ve already realised that root veggies aren’t working as well as other produce could and your book has given me loads of ideas! It’s the clearest, easiest book to follow and I’ve read the whole thing in one go!! Thanks soooooo much

I read your amazing article called, “The No Prune (almost) Method of Growing Fruit Trees” & was enthralled & captivated.
I must use those techniques you learned with my just now planting tiny orchard of eight fruit trees planted in a nine foot circular garden.
I searched for Paul Templeton & his training trees website to no avail! His domain is for sale! After two unsuccesful hours searching for “How-To” instructions you were so lucky to have learned during your “No Prunning” class I have turned to you in desparation.
Please pass on your knowledge that Paul Templeton taught you by writing further posts on the specifics of “No Prune Fruit Tree Training.”
The step by steps needed to form & train a fruit tree into the two shapes your articles photographs showed! Twisting, tying, ringing, notching, weighting….
Otherwise. I fear these unusual methods of training fruit trees will be lost forever.
My little backyard fruit orchard needs you.

Hi Naomi,
What a change in direction for you, you seem to be enjoying it. We have now moved up to Lancashire and have bought a sort of small castle on the edge of a forest, loving it, wish we had moved here years ago. We are half way up a small mountain or a large hill. About 50 yards from our back door are about 60 sheep, they along with the birds are our alarm clocks and go to sleep with the sound of owls. Colin